VENEZUELA:Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, has promoted loyalists to key positions and said he will shut down a pro-opposition television station on the eve of his third term in office.
Mr Chavez signalled more radical policies by tightening his grip in the run-up to his inauguration on Wednesday, the start of what he said would be a new phase in his "socialist revolution".
Since being re-elected to a six-year term last month, he has moved to unite the ruling coalition into a single party, reshuffled the cabinet and fired a shot across the bows of media critics.
Mr Chavez told a gathering of army officers last week that the licence of Radio Caracas Television would not be renewed when it expired in March. He accused it of backing a coup against him in 2002. The announcement triggered protests from Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, as well as a regional diplomatic body, the Organisation of American States, which said dissent was being stifled.
Venezuela's foreign ministry rejected the criticism and said shutting the station would guarantee freedom of expression. Much of the country's private media has been hostile to Mr Chavez. It was one of several stations which appeared to endorse the coup that briefly ousted him.
Analysts say Mr Chavez, emboldened by a landslide endorsement last month, has the momentum to become more radical. His oil-exporting nation is riding an economic boom that funds social programmes for the poor and credits for regional allies.
Two other left-wing leaders, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Ecuador's Rafael Correa, are due to be inaugurated this week, bolstering Mr Chavez's hopes of building a Latin American counterweight to the US.
Last week he fired the vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, a powerful and totemic political veteran. Jorgé Rodríguez, a former chief of Venezuela's electoral council, was appointed vice-president and the president's brother, Adan Chavez, was named education minister. Mr Chavez said. "All of these changes are without a doubt to strengthen . . . the path to socialism."
He also announced a plan to merge his movement's amorphous grouping of more than 20 political parties into a single body, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. This has dismayed some of the smaller parties, who fear losing influence as power is centralised.